Mina's 1st Birthday

  My little baby, Mina, turned 1 on April 14th. It's a little crazy because it doesn't seem like a year should have gone by already. She's so fun! I love watching my kids discover new things and learn to roll over, crawl, walk. I'm definitely going to miss it when it's gone, but for now, I'm just loving watching her.

  I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this before but we have two separate birthday parties for each side. For my side we have Family Dinner every other week and, unless otherwise planned, we celebrate birthdays then too. We went over to Kevin and Amy's house (my brother and sister-in-law) for dinner, which was delightful lasagna, and just chatted while the kids were outside playing on the swing set. Eventually we called them all back inside and opened presents and had dessert. I had tried making cupcakes in ice cream cones but they didn't turn out well at all. I had envisioned this perfect, beautiful treat but when I pulled them out of the oven, the batter had spilled all down the sides and it was a mess. Oh well, I took them anyway. Everyone said they were good, but I know better. I tasted them myself and they sucked. =)

Mina wasn't sure how to react to opening presents. She'd never really done it before.

Lily really took to this pull along dog. It's rare to actually see Mina with it. =)

My camera won't focus if it's really low on battery. I should probably check that before big events.

  Later that week we had a party with Dave's family. I will tell you that I am awful when it comes to gauging food needed. We had Salsa Chicken Tacos with rice and beans and fruit. Let's just say we had a whole crock pot full of the chicken mixture (which we still devoured during the next few days) and two huge Tupperware full of rice (which we didn't even touch. What a waste, I know.). Anyway, dinner was really good even if we totally overdid it and being with everyone was such a blast. We opened presents and had Root Beer Floats for desert. We bought a cupcake for Mina to be able to demolish because really, she can't maneuver a root beer float. Most of the older kids couldn't even maneuver them. She had a fun time being sung to and then she daintily ate a little of her cupcake and then allowed her cousin Avaree to eat most of it. It was funny to watch Mina give little bites to Avaree. I wish my kids would just get into ruining their cakes. Alas, it just wasn't meant to be. Oh well.

Cousin Brooklyn wanted to show Mina how her new "paint bucket" worked.

(From left to right) Cousins Avaree, Cameryn and Johanna decided they needed to help Mina with her gifts. =)

She didn't care about the cupcake, she wanted the fire. =)

I think she had one sprinkle in her hand at this point.

This is about when cousin Avaree decided to help Mina eat her cupcake. Such cuties! Can you see Avaree eyeing the cupcake? It was so funny.

  I know I had so much fun at her parties. I hope she had fun too. I love having most of my and Dave's family so close. It makes events like birthdays so fun! (Leslie and Lorrie, this means you should move back to Utah. I'm just putting in my two cents though.)